“I was absolutely ecstatic to see the end of the hockey season,” Gretzky told the National Post in 2000. “One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has been year-round hockey and, in particular, summer hockey. All it does for kids, as far as I can tell, is keep them out of sports they should be doing in the warmer weather.” READ MORE

While it may feel like an honor to be selected for one of these summer teams, research into long-term athlete development and sport science shows that playing more 10U games at the expense of practice time actually decreases the hockey skills acquisition rate. READ MORE